Awhile

How to spell awhile

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce awhile

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does awhile mean?

1. adverbFor a short period of time; used as a single-word adverb modifying a verb.

Awhile in a sentence

• The hikers paused to rest awhile before climbing the final ridge.

• She asked the children to sit quietly and read awhile.

Where does awhile come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Awhile descends from the Old English phrase 'ane hwile', meaning 'for a time', where 'hwil' was a noun naming a period or stretch of time. Over the centuries the two words fused into a single adverb, much as 'always' and 'awhile' both swallowed an old phrase into one word. The 'while' element is the same one that survives in the modern noun 'while' (a span of time) and in the conjunction 'while' (during the time that), all rooted in a Germanic word for an interval of rest or duration. English speakers began writing it as one word in the medieval period, and that fusion is the source of the modern spelling trap. Because the adverb 'awhile' already contains the sense 'for', the separate two-word phrase 'a while' is needed after a preposition such as 'for' or 'after', and confusing the two is the most common error today.

How the word is built

• a- (Old English an, meaning 'for' or 'a')
• while (hwil, a period of time)